1815 in art

Events

• April 22 – English portrait painter Thomas Lawrence is knighted.
• May 1 – The Royal Academy Exhibition of 1815 opens in at Somerset House. It features portraits by Thomas Lawrence of the Duke of Wellington and Marshal Blucher who will triumph at the Battle of Waterloo before the exhibition closes on June 24
• unknown date
• *Rebuilding of Brighton Pavilion by John Nash begins in England.
• *The unfinished Waterloo Vase is presented to George IV of [the United Kingdom|the Prince Regent] of the United Kingdom; the prince commissions sculptor Richard Westmacott to complete it.
• *Beginning of Biedermeier period in the European arts.
• *Académie Suisse, an informal art school, is established in Paris by artists' model Martin Suisse.
• *James Pollard's first four mail coach paintings are engraved and published as aquatints in Britain.

Works

• William Beechey
• * Portrait of Harriet Mellon
• * Portrait of Lord Beresford
• * Portrait of Thomas Picton
• Edward Bird – The Departure to London
• Vincenzo Chilone – The Return of the Horses of San Marco
• John Constable
• * Brightwell Church and Village
• * Boat-Building Near Flatford Mill
• Abraham Cooper – Marshal Blucher at the Battle of Ligny
• Denis Dighton – The Defence of Hougoumont
• Charles Lock Eastlake – Napoleon on the Bellerophon
• Francisco Goya
• *The Junta of the Philippines
• * Portrait of Ferdinand VII
• *Self-portrait at 69
• *Tauromaquia
• George Jones – The Prince Regent Received by the University and City of Oxford
• Orest Kiprensky – Portrait of Vasily Zhukovsky
• Thomas Lawrence
• * Portrait of the Duke of Wellington
• Charles Robert Leslie – The Murder of Rutland by Lord Clifford
• J. M. W. Turner
• *Crossing the Brook
• *Dido Building Carthage, or, The Rise of the Carthaginian Empire
• David Wilkie – ''Distraining for Rent''

Births

• February 15 – Eugène-Louis Lequesne, French sculptor
• February 18 – Baron Leys, Belgian painter
• February 21 – Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier, French Classicist painter and sculptor
• March 15 – Dimitrije Avramović, eminent Serbian painter of icons and frescoes
• May 19 – Thomas Thornycroft, English sculptor
• June 11 – Julia Margaret Cameron, née Pattle, Indian-born British photographer
• July 12 – Hablot Knight Browne, English illustrator
• September 1 – Emma Stebbins, American sculptor
• November 15 – John Banvard, American panorama painter
• December 8 – Adolph Menzel, German painter and engraver
• December 21 – Thomas Couture, French painter and art teacher
• date unknown
• *Carlos Luis de Ribera y Fieve, Spanish painter, son of Juan Antonio Ribera
• *Thomas Stuart Smith, Scottish painter

Deaths

• March 7 – Francesco Bartolozzi, Italian engraver
• May 28 – Charlotta Cedercreutz, Swedish painter and noblewoman
• June 1 – James Gillray, British caricaturist
• June 28 – Torii Kiyonaga, Japanese ukiyo-e printmaker and painter of the Torii school
• August 31 – John Edwards, English botanist, painter, designer and illustrator
• September 9 – John Singleton Copley, American painter
• November 9
• *Samuel Alken, English sculptor and engraver
• *Giuseppe Bossi, Italian painter, arts administrator and writer on art
• December 31 – Thomas Burke, Irish engraver and painter
• date unknown
• *Johann Christian Eberlein, German painter
• *Emma Körner, German painter